


Too Much

by Polyhexian



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, One-Sided Attraction, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27510721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: For a moment and not for the first time, Soundwave wondered where the line was, when it would be too much, when he would say no more. If there was anything left in him that was able to care, if that would ever bubble to the surface again.
Relationships: Megatron/Soundwave (Transformers)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Too Much

Soundwave stood on the command deck of the Nemesis watching the display against the forward wall shift and change, running through data and information streams. Statistics, reports, input, output, numbers and symbols he didn't need to think about to index and codeify. 

Voices spoke around him, and while he recorded them, recorded everything, he wasn't truly listening. He didn't much care about the opinions of those such as Airachnid or Starscream or Knock Out or whoever it was blathering on behind him. They did not matter, had never mattered. He had been here before them and he would be here after them, too, when their ambitions left them empty and they realized they had grasped at nothing but dry sand. Power over an empty empire.

He returned to his internal data analysis, easier to contemplate than the world outside himself. For a moment and not for the first time, Soundwave wondered what he might have done, uncountable lifetimes ago, if he'd known then what he knew now.

"Soundwave," rumbled a voice behind him, harsh like gravel, like steel against steel, like cities on fire. Soundwave tilted his helm to the side, indicating he was listening.

"Has your scan located any likely locations for the Autobot base?" his Lord asked. Soundwave shook his head and Megatron shook with a beast-like growl, then turned and grabbed Starscream by a wing and threw him to the floor in yet another fit of rage directed at the seeker.

In a flash Soundwave had swept Megatron's legs out from under him with a sweep of a data cable. The warlord landed heavy on his back, and surprise made his reaction lethargic, delayed, so that he hadn't quite returned to his feet when Soundwave's fist connected with his faceplate and he felt an optic crack beneath his fingers. The whole thing only lasted a few seconds before he'd cracked open his former Lord's chest plating and wrenched his spark from it's housing- once a great warrior, adored by millions for his undefeated win streak in the pits, he had gone soft, pathetic. His once calculated movements and measured strategies had been replaced by raw displays of force and strength than worked when fighting an opponent smaller and less skilled than himself, but the mech who had once tied with Soundwave in a pit in Kaon was long gone, and displays of force were irrelevant when you couldn't hit your target.

Soundwave stood over the corpse of the mech he'd followed his entire wretched, wasted life, chest heaving, silent, clenched fists trembling with tension from how tightly held they were. He hated the shape of him, so similar to the mech he'd once loved, once idolized, once believed would save their world, replaced now by this pitiful excuse for him, stupid and slow and obsessive, revelling in cruelty for the sake of it and fantasies of vengeance and clout and power, so deep in it he had burned their world to the ground and run their race into extinction and saved no one. Soundwave would rather still be in the pits. He slammed a pede into the back of Megatron's head, grinding it into the floor of the Nemesis as the hate ran through him, the rage, the betrayal, the anger.

"Soundwave," Megatron repeated, "Run it again." 

Starscream pushed himself up to his elbows, wing bent inward from where it had been grabbed, head bowed as he grovelled. "I will send another survey team, My Lord," he said, optics on the floor. 

"See to it that you do, Starscream," Megatron sneered. Soundwave watched him through the corner of his visor and wondered how he had ever found such a twisted face beautiful, but was sure he must have, at some point. 

"I will not be denied my conquest of this world as I was our own," the madman continued to ramble as Soundwave turned away from him, "The Autobots will pay for their insolence."

The location of the Autobot base blinked back at Soundwave in his HUD. He'd found it months ago, barely shielded as it was. He filed the coordinates away as he always did and ran the scan again.

He heard Megatron's footsteps walk away behind him and Starscream struggle to his feet to bow, breathing heavily. Voices spoke around him, though he wasn't listening closely enough to be consciously aware of what they were saying or who was speaking. He simply recorded them and filed it all away for later.

For a moment and not for the first time, Soundwave wondered where the line was, when it would be too much, when he would say no more. If there was anything left in him that was able to care, if that would ever bubble to the surface again. 

Starscream hissed as he bent his own wing back into shape with a shriek of twisting metal.

Probably not.


End file.
